


pilot light, pale rapture

by purplebard



Series: Pilot Light, Pale Rapture [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Earth C (Homestuck), Gen, Grimbark, Not Epilogue Compliant, POV Multiple, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-19
Updated: 2019-04-19
Packaged: 2020-01-16 15:41:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18524551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/purplebard/pseuds/purplebard
Summary: You would appear in his windowsill and he would be so happy – or maybe he would wake you up first, and you would cry and jump up and down because the Heir is awake, and you have so much to explore! You’d watch the eclipse, dazzled, as Skaialight flitted across cumulonimbi. And John would come to know all of your Prospitian friends, and as the gilded planet revolved ‘round Skaia you would tell him all about your life and how you had waited for this. You wouldn’t be alone anymore.The reality is – not disappointing, no. You won’t call it that. The reality is. Different.





	pilot light, pale rapture

**Author's Note:**

> had to get this out quick before more epilogue upd8s invalidate it! 
> 
> this is just some stuff im hoping for from the prospit kids, mostly self indulgence and wishful thinking.

     Your brother doesn’t do much of anything anymore.  


     There is a brief period of time in which your ragtag group feels like they must make immediate and permanent decisions on what to do on this new terraformed planet. Where to go, where to live, how to settle. What can you do after all that time – that lonesome, stagnant stretch of time that smelled of dirty laundry and sweat – what can you do but move in with John? You pack the contents of your battleship hidey-hole and take up space in a room with fresh paint and beige carpet. Very safe and very plain. Your bare feet leave no imprints. The air mattress accumulates unfolded clothes.

     The housewarming was fun, you thought. Jane teaches Dave how to drive –  or tries to. He backs into the side of the house and dents the vinyl siding. Calliope eats part of a Solo cup. You and Jake get stuck together with a Chinese finger trap. When dishes pile in the sink and goodbyes are made and you shut the door on the last of them, you and John are left in awkward silence. You sit on the kitchen counter and sip your soda. John drums his fingers on the back of the couch.

     “So, um.” You rubbed the back of your neck. “Did you still want to put on a movie?”  
     He gives you the rubbery imitation of a smile. “If you don’t mind, I’m actually gonna hit the hay.”

     Party streamers linger for about a week before you bother to take them down. A deflating blue balloon hovers in the corner of the ceiling, bowing its head dejectedly until it finally sinks to earth two months later.

     You used to spend a lot of time thinking about what it might have been like if John woke up. You would appear in his windowsill and he would be so happy – or maybe he would wake you up first, and you would cry and clasp his hands in yours and jump up and down because the Heir is awake, the prince of the golden moon, and you have so much to explore! You would have tea and biscuits with the White Queen, you would fly down to King’s Crossing station and watch the shuttles take off. You would take gondola rides through the winding streams that creep through the cathedrals, you would sit in bell towers and hear the great gongs announce the ephemeral hours. You’d watch the eclipse, dazzled, as Skaialight flitted whispers of the past and future across cumulonimbi. And John would come to know all of your Prospitian friends, and as the gilded planet revolved ‘round Skaia you would tell him all about your life and how you had waited for this. You would share everything, because that’s what best friends do. You wouldn’t be alone anymore.

     The reality is – not _disappointing_ , no. You won’t call it that. The reality is. Different.  


     John sleeps until two in the afternoon. He eats a combination of lunch and dinner, which usually consists of oatmeal and half a glass of water. He pours the other half into the sink. He sits on his laptop and browses YouTube for a while. You’ll look over his shoulder and watch him watch videos of people constructing houses out of popsicle sticks or dropping white-hot balls of nickel through chunks of floral foam. He takes a nap, comes downstairs, drinks some water and puts the glass in the sink. Then he sits on the opposite side of the couch from you and watches a National Geographic special on the life cycle of flying whale lusii, or Rick Steves’ tour of the hottest tourist spots in the Carapacian Kingdom. Having gardened or decorated or exercised for most of the day, you let John pick and choose TV channels as you wind down, too tired yet to take a shower. You go to bed early, and John stays up until four in the morning.

     “Would you like to help me prune the apple tree?” you ask one morning, shaking his shoulder gently when the sun has almost reached its peak in the sky.  
     “Not really,” he mumbles, “too tired.” Then he falls back asleep for the next several hours.

     You love John. He’s your brother and your best friend, and you waited many years to be together like this. So you feel bad for feeling let down, like this isn’t going anything like how it was supposed to.  


     When you’re alone with your thoughts and you’re trimming the trees, iguanas scuttling around you and eating the sunflower seeds you keep in your pockets for them, you wonder if maybe the problem is you. John had a life before you. He had a dad and a house and a yard and a neighborhood and a school and a town. He wanted for nothing, he didn’t need a sister. He didn’t need you, who sat in long and lonesome hours at the top of the tower. Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your hair – or don’t, whatever. John didn’t wait up for you for hours, he didn’t take a marker and write messages of encouragement on your wall. You’ve copy-pasted yourself into his life, shunted yourself into family portraits, barged your way into his home.

     Three years you have been heartsick over the brother you allowed to die, and now that you have him back, you spend your time fretting over whether he even likes being around you.

     The mask you mastered – the complacent smile, the soft and understanding eyes – hardens over. You can’t tell if you’re more upset with John or yourself.

 

     Six months on the other side of the platform, you start spending a lot more time with Dave and Karkat. Your annoying boys, who you love to hassle as much as you love with laugh with them. Neither of them know how to cook for themselves, despite valiant efforts to teach them. You get in the habit of coming over every Tuesday to clear out their fridge and help them reheat the casseroles and gumbo that Nanna gives them. Sometimes you bring your bass and record some riffs for whatever track Dave is working on. They can’t decorate for shit, so you bring over house plants and write them instructions on how to take care of the succulents and the strawberries.

      It strikes you how gentle they are with each other, how accommodating, how kind. Softened at the edges. It’s a relief to be around them this way, even when they get on your nerves. Hustle and bustle and laughter throughout the house – a welcome change. Twice, you all fall asleep on the couch watching a shitty ghost hunting show and wake up around five in the morning, bleary-eyed and unsure of the time. You don’t have any messages from your roommate when you check your phone.

     “Why don’t you ever bring him with you?” Dave asks one day, his arms crossed and his leg jostling with nervous energy. He’s trying and failing to be nonchalant.  
     “I think…” You tap your chin. “I think John and I are on different schedules lately.”  
     “What’s that supposed to mean?” Karkat asks.  
     “I mean, his circadian rhythm is ill-suited for diurnal activity,” you laugh sheepishly.  
     Dave gives you a thoughtful “ _Hm_ ” and lets the subject drop, and because he notices the look on his boyfriend’s face, Karkat drops it too.

     It won’t be a month later that they’ve cleared out a guest room for you. It’s nicer than your room at home, with a bigger window and less storage bins. You don’t feel like you have to ask why they’ve done this gesture for you.

 

     One day, when you’re done with your errands and you’re back home with a bag over your shoulder, you’re surprised to find that John is sitting at the kitchen island already. It’s not even eleven yet. You glance at the clock on the stove in disbelief.

     “‘Morning,” he says through a mouthful of cereal.  
     “Hey! You’re up early,” you note gently. You unpack groceries from their paper bags, putting away fruit (for you) and whatever’s easiest to microwave (for John).  
     “Yeah, went to bed early last night,” John mumbles as he swirls his spoon around.  
     “That so? Let me guess, two?”  
     “Heh, more like midnight.”  
     “Hey, that’s good! You’re back on track.”

     John makes a sound of agreement as you open and close cabinets, clearing away dry dishes that you would’ve done earlier had you not stayed up learning how to play Monopoly. You played as the battleship. Karkat, playing as the shoe, throws his token at Dave when he ends up in jail.

     “Yeah, it made me feel really crappy, sleeping the day away like that. I dunno what got into me.” John sips his glass of water, half empty. “I’m gonna try to be better about that.”  
     “I’m glad to hear that, John. We missed you.”  
     “Did you spend the night there again?”  
     “Was that not okay?’  
     The corner of John’s mouth tugs downward. “No, no, you’re good. I don’t care.”

     He doesn’t mean to sound rude, but the sharp edge of _I don’t care_ stings. You _want_ him to care. You want him to comment on your absence. Maybe that’s why you spend so much time over there. Maybe it’s partly because you want him to notice you’re gone, and miss you. You want him to feel how you feel.

     Oh. That thought again. You squash it under your foot.

     John gets up to wash his bowl. “Maybe I’ll go over there with you next time.”  
     “They ask about you a lot. They think you’re blowing them off. Not that they’d tell me that.”  
     He scratches his jaw. “I feel like… I don’t know, I’m kind of reaching the point of no return? Like if I don’t try to patch things up now, they’ll think that I’m… uncomfortable around them, or something.”  
     “Are you?”  
     “No!” His response is too fast – he squeezes his eyes shut and backtracks. “No, I mean. I guess it kind of makes sense. It’s just kind of weird to hang out with people who are dating. I feel like I’m intruding.”  
     “It’s not weird to me.” You lean back against the island and fold your arms. “Is that why you didn’t like hanging out with me and Davesprite?”  
     Surprised, John blinks at you. “You remember that?”  
     You give him a small smile. “No. I’ve heard the fables, though.”

     John laughs in the way that he does when he doesn’t want to answer a question. He returns to his perch, and you turn around to face him with your elbows resting on the island.

     “Maybe it… had something to do with it,” he says with a forced smile. “You know how me and Davesprite always got on each other’s nerves.” He winces. “Or, you must’ve _heard_ that we did. It sounds dumb, but I guess I was kinda mad at him for ‘stealing’ my sister. Then again, I also got mad at him for breaking up with you. So in the end I was pretty much looking for reasons to be mad.”  
     Without knowing what to say, you examine a gray spot on the linoleum. “Well, I wouldn’t know.”  
     John clears his throat in response.

     You’re suddenly annoyed, and the fact that you’re annoyed further annoys you, because you shouldn’t be _annoyed_ with John. You should be cutting him slack. SBURB mugged him at gunpoint, stole his lunch money, shoved him in a locker. His life was better before he popped the disc in his computer. His life has been hard, much harder than yours, of _course_ , for you had years to harden in your cocoon and become strong, to stand with a stiff chin, to grow accustomed to the awful unfair lonesome ways of the world, to accept the intricacies of its cruelty. John has been dealt with a heavy burden, yes, the decision to let you languish in time, the responsibility of cutting your strings and letting you flop to the stage, your marionette arms and legs splayed, staring up into the spotlights. This is why he sleeps all day. This is why he avoids you. This is why he hides himself away, becomes a ghost.

     You suddenly realize why it is that you’re annoyed. You’re annoyed because when you look at your brother – the dark circles under his eyes, the droop of his eyelids, the slow and sad twitch of his hands – you are looking at yourself. You see her balled up on the sofa, untouched dinner, balled under a blanket and wearing the same pajamas as last week. You see yourself staring up at the ceiling while Nanna speaks to you – or rather, _at_ you, because her voice comes to you dull and monotone through the length of a long tunnel and you don’t make out anything she’s saying. You see senseless squandering, weeks and months and years tucked away in a drawer to be forgotten.

     How disgusting it is to waste away, to let your own mind whittle you down to a wisp. You clench your fist so hard that your knuckle pops.

     “Hey? Did you hear me?”  
     John’s voice tunes in, a faraway radio station, a voice down a long tunnel.  
     “John,” you say, “what makes someone real?”

     He stares at you with his head cocked. His eyebrows furrow.

     “What makes someone ‘real?’”  
     “Yes. If you’re real, what makes someone else ‘not real?’”  
     He rubs his neck. “I mean, if the events of _your_ life are say, canonical, then I guess–”  
     “So what makes a person real is that they’ve experienced the same things as you. You come from the same time, you do the same things, you witness the same events unfolding. Is that what being real is? Sameness?”  
     “I don’t understand where you’re going with this, Jade.”  
     “John, do you miss her?”  
     “Do I miss who?”  
     “Do you miss the Jade who stayed with you? The one from your own time, before everything went wrong.”

     Your brother exhales, a defeated sound, and you know he has nothing to say to this that will spare him. And you stare at him evenly, just looking at him, not smiling but not really frowning, either.

     “I don’t have to,” he offers. “You’re right here. We’re talking right now.”  
     “But I didn’t live the same events as you. We’re on completely different pages.” You cock your head. “You have memories of a girl who’s a different being. Me – _I_ have no memories of being her, I can’t understand her, I can’t relate to her. I haven’t seen you for three years, John. Do we know each other at all?”  
     John blinks at you with his mouth open. “Of course I _know_ you, Jade, we’ve been friends for years.”  
     “How much about me did you know? Better yet, what about me did you believe?”  
     “I–”  
     “What do you know about me, John? What do I like?”  
     For a moment he wipes the confused look off his face and manages to appear irritated. His eyebrows crease together, shooting your own glare back at you. “You’re trying to goad me into making an ass of myself, Jade.”  
     “No I’m not.”  
     “Yes you are.”

     You can’t look at him anymore. You can’t talk in circles, jabbering and blabbering and bickering. It’s worse than being ignored. It’s worse than being alone. Turning away from him, you take stock of yourself and press your hand to your mouth. Don’t say anything stupid.

     “I wish you’d put in the effort.”

     Failed step one.

     “Put in the effort to _what_?”  
     “I don’t know. Act like you can stand me, maybe. That would be a start.” You sniff, which makes him think you’re about to cry, because he sighs, at a loss for what to say. “Or pretend that you’re thankful to be alive.”  
     John narrows his eyes. “If pretending is so easy, maybe you should pretend that you’re not embarrassed to be around me.”

     Something sour and slick bubbles inside of you. You open your mouth to say something you’ll regret, your mouth full of that static, that phosphorous stink. The Green Sun burbles out of you and lashes out. All of the open cabinets slam shut, causing the dishes to rattle in the drying rack. Your hair stands on end, crackling with electricity. John is already out of his barstool, standing back and half-ducking, his arm in front of his face. He was preparing for you to hurt him. To _hurt_ him, your only brother. You–

     “I’m going upstairs,” you breathe. And you let him win this argument, you let him chalk a tally mark on his side of the board, because that poor kid needs a victory, and you don’t know what you need at all.

 

-

 

     Once a month, from some obscure corner of the world, you get a Pesterchum message request from doubledPenelopiad.

 _Is your window open_ ? they text in the dead of night. _Knock, knock. Who’s there? It’s me! Davepeta! Let me in._ Claws at the door, the cat meowing to come inside.

     The Green Sun pulls your window open. Davepeta clamors in from the tree branch outside your window, shedding leaves and dirt on your clean carpet. You wince as they brush themselves off, but try not to make a big deal of it, because not making a big deal about things is kind of your brand. It’s nice when things don’t have to be a federal fucking emergency.

     “Whatcha doin’?” they trill, coming up from behind to watch you at your desk.

     The lamp is turned on to cast a harsh fluorescent halo across your workstation. Bits of metal and hardware, a tupperware container of recycled wires. You bite your lip in concentration as you carefully unscrew a tiny bolt.

     “Fixing this little guy.”  
     “What’s it s’pposed to do?”  
     “Oh, I don’t know.” You sigh and push up your glasses. “I think I’ll program it to lock my windows so strange people don’t break into my room in the dead of night.”  
     “Har, har, Harley. You think you’re so funny.”

     Davepeta flops onto your bed and makes a snow angel in the pile of mismatched blankets and hoodies that haven’t been put away yet. They hum to themself as you piece together the delicate segments of your robot.

     There is something that makes it very difficult to ask whether Davepeta likes you. _Likes_ likes, because you know the olde fables of Davesprite, and you were always Nepeta’s favorite human, and there is a very limited number of ways to interpret someone suddenly and jarringly kissing you before heading off to fight an omnipotent monster. But Davepeta likes their space. They prowl this new planet like an indoor-outdoor cat patrolling the perimeter of the yard, returning home only when they’re certain that there isn’t a squirrel to chase or another tomcat to hiss at. There is an easy and effortless rapport between you, and although you’ve thought about it a lot, you don’t really care if you never find out what’s going on there.

     It’s simpler this way. Davepeta checks in on you, purrs by your feet, requires little affection. The swirling and contradicting bits inside of them have settled down, a shaken-up soda can slowly losing its fizz. As the true Davepeta emerges, you find that you like them much more than you did before. You would’ve preferred that they’d asked before kissing you, for example, and the claws to the stomach were not at all necessary. You haven’t let Davepeta live it down.

     “Can I ask you a question?” you ask suddenly.  
     “Go fur it.”  
     “How did it make you feel, when you thought that John didn’t consider you ‘real?’”  
     “Oh, Davesprite, you mean?”  
     “Yeah.”  
     “Ah, hm.” Davepeta sits up straight and taps their chin, the crescent-moon scar on their upper lip curling as they scrunch their mouth. “Crappy! I saved that suckers life, ya know. Least I could get is a decent thank you.” They tuck their wispy hair behind a pointed ear. “It sucks when you can tell someone is uncomfurtable being ameownd you.”  
     “What?”  
     “Around. Being ‘around’ you. Like with ‘meow’ in it. It didn’t work, did it?”  
     “No, not really.” You flip a tiny circuit board over between your fingers, examining it. “Anyway, I know what you mean. I think John… well, it’s nothing.”  
     “Hm! Didn’t sound like nothin’ to me!”

      Davepeta rises from your mattress and makes their way to the back of your chair, resting their sharp little heart-shaped chin on your shoulder. They blow a raspberry in your face.

     “Stop!” you laugh, swatting their arm. “John is still awake. Be considerate.”  
     “Oh _no_ , whatever shall he tell Father when he hears that an illicit suitor has come to see the lady of the house. The scandal! The caw-troversy!” Davepeta wraps their arms around your waist and watches you set the LED lights back into the metal cranium of your little gizmo. “John what? John what, huh? Tell me, tell me, _tell me, t–_ ”  
     “Oh, my god, you’re going to drive me nuts.” You sigh and drop your voice. “I think, _maybe_ , that John doesn’t think I’m… the ‘real’ Jade.”  
     They blink at you. “Well of course you are. What a dumb thing to think.”  
     “If I hear the word ‘ultimate’ juxtaposed anywhere near the word ‘self,’ I am going to strangle you.”  
     “Hot.”  
     “I’m being serious. I think it’s _fabulous_ that you’ve achieved enlightenment in a freak accident, but I’m stuck with what I have. I’m _stuck_ with who I am.” You sigh. “It’s just me. I don’t have the privilege of seeing every possible thing I’m capable of.”  
     “I mean, if you _want_ , I can help you out with that.”  
     “And how exactly are you going to do that?”  
     “Do you know what a Rogue of Heart can do?”  
     “No, I don’t.” You extract a red cable from your container of leftover robot parts. “I can tell you’re aching to tell me, though, so go on.”  
     “There’s still pieces of her out there. Even if they’re only fractures, spinning ‘round in the storm drain, headin’ towards oblivion.” Davepeta yawns theatrically and nuzzles your neck. “A Rogue is sorta like a crafty lil thief. I can sneak in there like a bandit and nab her meowmories, all the times you missed, all the good times you had with your brother and the handsome stud with the wings.”  
     You consider this for a moment. “That’s grotesque.”  
     “What about it?”  
     “Stealing memories from a dead version of myself and stuffing them in my own head. It doesn't seem right.”  
     “Like how it was right to steal your dream self out of the bubbles?” Davepeta retorts with a coy smile. “She didn’t like being who she was, either. But hey, if you hadn’t done it, you woulda been dead as a doorknob.”  
     You set your tools down. “She didn’t like being who she was, no, and I didn’t like being confronted with the fact that, somewhere, sometime, under the right circumstances–”  
     “You could behave like that?”  
     “Yes.”

     It feels awful, the way eyes divert when you walk into a room. The way a story begins to be recounted, how they cough and trail off because at the same time they were enjoying a three-year vacation, you were alone. Your presence is a wet blanket, a damper on the mood. And you try so hard not to be sad, to put forth your best face, to pretend and nod along, but they know the truth of what happened to you, and it makes them uncomfortable. Uncomfortable. Looks of pity, treading on eggshells. On the outside looking in.

     “Maybe just a few of them,” you murmur.  
     “Hm?”  
     “Not the full three years. Just a few, though, I could probably deal with.”  
     Davepeta shakes their head. “Not the way it works, Jade. Heart Roguery ain’t an exact science. You get what you get.”  
     You were afraid of that. “I’ll have to keep thinking about it, then. I’m not ready to make a decision.”  
     “That’s okay, no pressure.” Davepeta shrugs and allows antigravity to lift them up. They fold their arms behind their head and drift above you, folding their legs to bob their foot. “Lemme just throw in my two cents – I think it would help with whatefur you’re feelin’. Knowin’ what you’re capable of when things go a diffurent way speaks to what kind of person you really are. It probably won’t ‘fix’ ya, and I wouldn’t expect it to.”  
     “I don’t think I _want_ to be fixed.” Your hands twitch. “Is that how you feel, knowing everything?”  
     They make a sound of consideration. “I _think_ , that you have to understand yourself if you ever want to be happy with the person you are.”  
     “So, since you know what you’d do and how you’d act in almost every conceivable situation….”  
     “I know myself inside and out, and I’m happy with the results.” Davepeta rolls in mid-air, whisking the ceiling with the tips of their feathers. “I’m a good person, me and all my components. I’m a loyal friend and I have a strong sense of right and wrong. I’m creative. I have good intuition when it comes to other people and what they’re capable of. I’m in touch with my emotions, and I see the best in people.”  
     “You’re playing it up so much that I think having her memories would end up being a disappointment,” you laugh.  
     They rest their chin on their folded arms. “You may never know what it’s like to be every single iteration of yourself at once, and it’s a _great_ feeling, but it’s not fur everyone. It’s like eating a gopher whole, like _bones_ and all, and you gotta sit there and digest it and try not to burp it all up.”  
     “Ew.”  
     “Eh, not every metaphor’s a winner.”  
     “Like I said, I’ll have to think about it.”  
     “I’ll still be here when you decide.”

     You switch the lamp off and stand up from the desk, tugging your hair back into a ponytail. Davepeta lays next to you as you flop onto your mattress, too tired to even wash your face.

     “I think I have some ideas on other things I could do in the meantime. To feel better, I mean.”  
     “What’s that?”  
     The Sun switches the light off in your room. Everything goes black. Little lights from computer servers and charging cables blink in the dark.  
     “You have to promise that you won’t tell John. I’ll tell him myself when I’m ready.”  
     “When do I ever talk to him, anyway? Kid wants nothin’ to do with nobody.”  
     You ignore this comment, folding your glasses and setting them on the floor. “Dave and Karkat asked me to move in with them.”  
     “Why?”  
     “ _Why?_ I think they can probably tell that I don’t… like it here.”  
     “Maybe they want a housemaid.” Davepeta winds their arms ‘round you, the tremble of a quiet purr in their throat. “They are both very bad at taking care of themselves.”  
     “Trust me, I know,” you laugh.  
     “Or _maybe_ they got the hots for ya. Can’t hardly blame ‘em.”  
     “Ugh, if that’s the case then I’m staying right where I am. I like hanging out with them, but they’re a walking disaster. I’m _not_ getting tangled up with that.”  
     “Oh, but if you live with them it will be so much fun to visit you! Really raises the stakes!” Davepeta rests their cheek on your collarbone. “Tryin’ to sneak around those little doofuses without gettin’ caught. All like _Jade, I’m trying to climb in through the window, but I’m du–”_  
     “Anyway, I told them I’d think about it.”  
     “Seems like thinkin’ is all we got left to do nowadays.” Davepeta sighs through their nostrils. “It’s hard to leave your bro behind, isn’t it?”  
     “Yeah.”

     It’s like a heavy rock is sitting on your chest, pressing on you, forcing the tears to spring into your eyes. Davepeta makes a trill of curiosity when you lift your hand to wipe at your eye.

     “I think I liked it better when we had monsters to fight,” you mutter. “A clear and defined goal, you know? There’s no quest anymore. There’s nothing to achieve.” You sigh. “I don’t know what it is that I’m supposed to be working towards.”  
     “You could start by figuring out what will make you happy.” The dull tip of their horn brushes your chin, and you want to be irritated, but you can’t summon the energy. “Once you got that locked down, you just gotta start working towards it.”

_Find out what makes you happy._

     Easier said than done. What used to make you happy? The first leaves unfurling from the soil. An experiment gone right. Water lapping at the shore, the soft hum of a plane engine far above the ocean. Bec’s fur between your fingers, the smell of salt and brine. Your grandfather lifting you up on his shoulders, seeing the world from his height, the smell of old newspaper and cigars. Constellations crawling across the hemisphere. A fresh notepad, a new gel pen, writing out numbers and decimals. A new message on Pesterchum, the chime of a response, a smiling emoticon. The feeling of flight, the eight ball in your hands, the little swimming tadpole. Seeing their smiles for the first time, live and in the flesh, not just a shadow in the folds of a cloud.

      Find out what makes you happy.

     You close your eyes and listen to the rhythm of their purring, their heart beating, and you allow yourself to fall asleep.

 

-

 

     You only go back once.

     Your script was fumbled and Jade was so angry with you and all you wanted was to make things better and you didn't understand why you couldn't hop back, slip through the cracks, back where you could fix the problem at the source. If you could fix the problem, she wouldn’t be so sad. If you fixed it, you wouldn’t have this brick wall between you, miles high and miles thick, making conversation and understanding and even affection nearly – impossible? Possible, but slow going and difficult.

     You rewrote your sister’s fate for the sake of a stranger, for the sake of someone you didn't even trust. Could you call yourself just or right or even _good_ if you didn't try to make it better?

     So you go back, slipping out of this universe and into another.

 

     You go back to the Yard without a plan, launching headfirst without thinking, a rash little Heir with something to prove. You reach your hand in, sliding through the static and the pages, and come out where the sky streaks with Van Gogh greens and yellows, where the air makes your hair crackle on end with electricity and the scent of steel and bronze leaves its taste in your mouth. Worse for wear but well on its way, the Prospitian Royal Navy Ship _Basilica_ strains against gravity toward the Fourth Wall. It feels like home, almost, or what it may have been like to be away at university – the fondness you might feel for your shitty dorm room, the dining hall food, your jabbering chattering classmates. Something familiar and safe, yellow paint plastered atop the melancholy and the morose.

     You whisper into wind and slip through the vents, down to where you know you will find your sister.

     Thumping in the pipes, the low grumbling of the defunct engine and the pitter-pattering of echoing footsteps. The background noise that reassured you, made you feel less alone. You embrace the small sounds as you wisp through the ship, searching for Jade.

     She isn’t in her room, which surprises you. It looks much different then it did when you were with her. Sheets are unmade and clothes lie in piles on the floor. The posters she’s bothered to hang up are drooping at the corners. There’s a wilted plant on her porthole sill. A smell settles over everything – the smell of living in your pajamas for three days straight, a smell that reminds you of sadness. It’s not unfamiliar to you. Looking over her dim bedroom, the only light a trace of deep green from the outside, disheartens you. Hearing about it from Jade, with glossed-over details and chunks of time omitted, was one thing. Seeing it for what it is, this inglorious and deeply saddening sight, is a whole other monster. You are responsible for this. You feel like you are going to be sick.

     You continue to wind through the ship, breathing down copper hallways and past nocturnal chess people who shudder and shiver when you pass them unseen. Then you come to the door where your living room was, the hodge-podge of clashing furniture that took two hours and several arguments to settle. You breeze under the door and find Jade sleeping on your couch.

     She’s curled up with her back to you, a mess of uncombed hair falling over her. You think she looks skinnier than she did when things went right – or rather, in Typheus’ view, wrong. It makes her look insubstantial, haggard, like she might disappear. There’s half a glass of water on the table beside her, a plate of cold dinner that hasn’t been touched. Jade sighs in her sleep and hugs herself tighter, making herself into a smaller shape. Willing herself to vanish.

     You have no idea what you’ve done to her, do you?

     Lifting your hand, you start to reach for her shoulder. The inkling of a plan swimming around in your brain, you think, is a good one. You’ll wake her up, shake her from sleep, tell her that you are so sorry that you left her, that you wouldn’t’ve if you’d had a choice. That you know this must be very hard for her, but you are quite all right and you are not dead – well, not this version of you – and you will see her on the other side. Your brother is right here, good as new, Jade, and he’ll be waiting for you. Please don’t be sad, please don’t be angry with me. Everything will be all right.

     You reach to rustle her awake when you jump at the voice behind you.

     “You shouldn’t be here.”

     You turn and see Nanna lingering in the doorway, a blanket folded over her arm. One of your two Nannas, three if you’re feeling technical. Entirely too many paradox mothers to deal with, so the concept of motherhood feels nebulous and confusing to you. You like to avoid this one when you can. She’s more somber than her counterpart, she looks at you with narrow eyes, like perhaps she may be angry with you for what you did. And it’s all very unfair, anyway, that two Nannas survived and yet Jade couldn’t have even one brother.

     “Nanna. Hi.”  
     “I think I have an idea of what you’re trying to do, and I don’t think it’s a good plan.”  
     You swallow the lump in your throat. “I’m just trying to make things right.”  
     “By pulling your sister along on a string? I think not.”

     Nanna coasts across the room and tosses the blanket over Jade. She tucks it gently over her shoulders, taking care to cover her bare feet. Then she turns and rests her cold hand on your cheek, looking at you fondly through silver spectacles.

     “I knew you weren’t really gone,” she says with a tentative smile. “Breath is so tricky to pin down. Look at you, so _tall_ now.”  
     “I’m sorry to worry you.”  
     “You’re growing up to be very responsible,” sighs Nanna. “I know what you think you’re trying to accomplish by coming back, and I think you’re being a very good brother, but you haven’t seen her the way I have. You are only going to make things worse.”

     Jade flops over in her sleep. Her eyebrows are furrowed, a sad little twitching that creases the lines in her forehead. Nanna readjusts the blanket where it no longer covers her arm.

     “I wasn’t going to stay for long. Just apologize, and tell her everything will be okay. I don’t–” you choke on bitter guilt. “I don’t want her to think I’m dead.”  
     “John, if you come back only to leave her again, Jade will only resent you.”  
     “What if I…?”  
     “Stayed? For close to three years, wasting away in this life you’ve already lived? Would you be doing it because you wanted to, or out of pity for a sad girl?” Nanna cocks her head. “I wonder who would resent who more by the end of your journey.”  
     “I could go back before he went back to LOWAS. I could tell him never to go back, that Typheus would destroy him if he did. Then it’d still be me, and things would go like they were supposed to.”  
     “Clever boy. But then there would be two of you. Are you prepared to deal with that?” She gives you a look down the length of her nose. “This isn’t your time anymore, John. Mistakes get made, and you can’t always go back to patch them up. How will you take responsibility for hurting people if you just flip back the pages and write them all away?”  
     You heart sinks. “I didn’t think of that.”  
     “Of course you didn’t. That’s what grandmothers are for.”

     You chew the inside of your mouth.

     “I could leave a note.”  
     “Do you think it would help?”

  
     This makes you hesitate. Your sister waking up with a folded paper in her fist, reading the cobalt words and weeping because you didn’t care enough to tell it to her face. Because she wasn't important enough to stick around for.

  
     “So there really isn’t anything I can do, is there? Is that what you’re telling me?”  
     Nanna settles into a stuffy armchair from Jade’s foyer, perhaps one that once supported a mummy or a taxidermied wolf in military uniform. An antique smell of dust rises out of it when she sits. “I think you should go back to where you came from and deal with the repercussions.”  
     This stings. You rub your arm and look away. “I tried. She was so happy to see me, but after we won and things settled down… I don’t know. She was always ticked off at me, like she was mad at me for not guessing what she was feeling? And I think she’s mad at herself for being mad at me, which just makes her even madder....”  
     “You ‘tried,’ or you’re still trying?”  
     You don’t reply.  
     “Forgiveness is a steep climb. Keep working at it.” Nanna nods to Jade, whose anxious face is half burrowed now beneath the crocheted blanket. “See how much she loved the two of you? She wants you back in her life, John.”  
     “I know.”  
     “Don’t say ‘I know’ if your actions are saying something else. Whatever fantastic world you came from, you should return there. You’re gods now. A young Pantheon. Spend time with your sister. Put in the effort.”

_Put in the effort._

     You give Nanna a soft smile. “I’ll see you at dinner tomorrow, then. My time, I mean.”

     Dinner with your dual grandmothers, the twin sprites who subject you to the horrifying ordeal of a hot meal once a month. One of them mans the stove while another coaxes you into a game of gin rummy. Jazz plays on the radio and flowers hang from the ceiling, bobbing in the breeze from the open window. You get up to use the restroom, come back, and sit on a whoopee cushion.

     Nanna tilts her head and looks at you for a moment. The corner of her mouth tugs into a reluctant smile. “Bring your appetite, dear.”

     Giving Jade one more sheepish look of guilt, you nervously fiddle with your sleeve and prepare to take your leave.

     “Bye, Nanna. I’m sorry.”  
     “I know, dear. You’ll be okay. We all will.”

     You fall back through the air and slip through the nanosecond spaces between then and now, stepping across broad swathes of time into the present, beyond the Yellow Yard. Back where you began, a minute after you first left. The same cicadas are humming outside the window, the sinking sun washing the sky pink and purple.

     Your phone is at 39% and you have zero missed messages. You unlock the screen and decide to text your sister.

 

-

 

     There’s a rusty hinge in the back garden fence that creaks when you push it open. A gaggle of ruckus crows are crawing on the fence, flapping their wings and bobbing their heads at the intruder in the backyard. Last summer, you helped Jade and her housemates plant shady trees that would block the harsh sunlight in June and July. But they’re still saplings – and the sun is bearing down on you in hot waves. You wipe the beads of sweat from your forehead.

     John – whoops, you mean you – spot Jade kneeling before a row of freshly-tilled soil. A straw hat shades her bare shoulders. You think the two, jagged holes she snipped to accommodate her dog ears are very funny. Crunching your shoe in gravel to loudly announce your presence, you clear your throat.

     “What did you want to talk about?” Jade asks before you can open your mouth, before she even turns to eye you.  
     “Is now a bad time?” You scratch the mole on your chin nervously.  
     “No, I am perfectly capable of talking and gardening at the same time.” Jade wipes her dirty gloves off on her jeans and turns slightly to look at you. “It’s good to see you, John.”  
     You don’t really know what to say, so you look at the ground. “It’s good to see you too.”

     You – or rather, Jade, examines the row of cabbage heads before her, flipping over the leaves and studying the color. It’s quiet out here – still, peaceful. A welcome relief, you imagine, from the loud, incessant conversations between Dave and Karkat that sometimes give her headaches. There’s movement in the kitchen window that overlooks the backyard, and you think you see one of them flit away and disappear. The sound of a door closing, the clatter of a pot hitting the stove. Maybe you’ll pop your head in to see them. Maybe you won’t. They’re tactful enough to give you space in the few times you visit to check in on your sister.

     You’re not very good at visiting them. It’s never visiting Karkat, or visiting Dave, it’s always the two of them. A unit. You guess it’s kind of cute – their effortless affection. At first you thought it made you uncomfortable, but nowadays you accept that you wish you had that kind of connection with someone else.

     “You didn’t answer me,” Jade says as she’s working the soil.  
     “Did it have to be about anything in particular?”  
     “You told me you had something you wanted to tell me.”  
     “Oh.” You rub your neck. “I guess I did, didn’t I?”  
     Jade sighs and adjusts the strap of her shirt. “You’re doing that thing again.”  
     “What thing?”  
     “The thing where you psyche yourself up too much about having a serious conversation. Can we not talk in circles like a pair of absolute jackasses? My head already hurts.”

     You can’t help but smile. A Dave-and-Karkat-induced migraine has driven her out of the house.

     “Sorry.” Unsure what to do with yourself, you put your hands in your pockets. “I guess I just wanted to hang out.”  
     “And you felt you had to make up some sort of emergency to do that?” Jade’s ear flicks. “John, you don’t need a reason to want to hang out with me. You’re my brother, and I care about you. I always have time for you.”  
     The way she says this without turning to look at you almost concerns you. “I’m just trying to… put in the effort.”  
     Jade pauses. She sits still for a moment, then lowers her head. Her voice is quieter when she responds. “I appreciate that, John.”

     You are suddenly very aware that you don’t know what you’re doing here. Not living together, not being able to come down to the living room and throw yourself on the sofa and sit beside each other in silence – it’s different, and it’s weird. You think of how easy it was with her on the ship. The ship you can’t talk about, because she has scattered memories of it, at least from what’s been passed on to you, but they’re not really hers. It feels like talking about a party she wasn’t invited to. You think about how she must remember what you thought about Davesprite, how things that happened to other people but not you aren’t _real_ , how she must not think that you think she’s _real_ , that you’re living with a secondhand ghost who pales in comparison to the original. You think about how much it stung when Jade moved out to live with boys who were more fun to be around than you.

     You are suddenly very aware that you miss being best friends with your sister.

     “Jade?”  
     “Yes, John?”  
     “How is it, living here? Do you like it?”

     Jade stops to consider this. Cicadas screech in the undergrowth, a soundtrack for the summer heat. She pushes her glasses up her nose and wipes the dirt from her face, the smatter of soil you were about to point out to her.

     “They’re decent housemates, if that’s what you’re asking. They remember to water my plants nine times out of ten.” She looks somewhere above you, contemplating. “They can usually make dinner without setting off a smoke detector.”  
     “Do you have fun?”  
     Your sister shrugs. “I guess. Do you?” 

     You open your mouth only to shut it again. What did you manage to get done today? Did you even do anything at all? Could you tell her about the Yard, how you saw her curled up in defeat, deflated? What could you say? _I tried to save you, I tried to help. But I chickened out._

     “It’s weird not having you around. After all that time we spent dicking around on that ship, I think I took for granted that you would always be around to bother.”  
     “I’m still here.” Jade’s voice is gruff.  
     “I know. You know what I mean.”  
     She exhales, her shoulders sinking. “You’re still mad at me for moving out.”  
     “No I’m not!”  
     “John, it’s okay. It was a hard decision, and I sprung it on you too quickly. I could have been nicer about it.”  
     “I’m not a baby, Jade. You can do whatever you want with your life.”  
     “I know I can. It’s difficult, though, isn’t it?” She tilts her head and stares at you. “Putting yourself before others. It’s not easy to do.”  
     You shove your hands in your pockets. “No, it’s not.”  
     She casts her eyes down and relents her staring. “In any case, thank you for understanding.”

     Laughter from the inside of the house. Karkat’s deep-bellied, throaty laugh, Dave snorting at his own joke.

     “Do you… want help, or anything? I’ve gotten pretty rusty from the stuff you taught me a while back.”

     You, that is to say not you, but rather Jade, doesn’t hear you. Normally you can tell when she’s listening but not responding – her little ears swivel to the source of your voice, flicking in subtle acknowledgement. No, Jade is not paying attention this time. She’s crouched in the dirt, rooting through the rippled leaves of a cabbage with her gloved hands. She huffs, frustrated.

     You, that is to say you, John, look over her shoulder. Where the cabbage coalesces into a cluster of folded leaves in its center, it’s begun to rot. The leaves are wet and slimy, a dark purplish hue tinting them.

     “What’s wrong with it?” you ask.  
     “It has soft rot.” Jade thumbs apart the dark, tainted segments of the vegetable. Parts of the squishy plant come off on her gloves and glob themselves there. “Common enough disease. Its tissue has collapsed.”  
     Your nostrils flare at the sharp smell of decay. “Do you know what’s causing it?”  
     “Oh, it could be plenty of things. I’d put my money on bugs.” Jade adjusts her straw hat. “I’ll just collect some spiders from the cellar and set them loose out here. Make them earn their keep.”  
     This strikes you as a gross way of putting it. “Is there anything you can do for the cabbage? It’d be a shame to let it go to waste.”  
     “Yeah, it would be.” Jade reaches under the broad, dark leaves. “There’s nothing that I can do to treat soft rot, though. It will simply continue to spread.”

     With a sharp yank she rips the cabbage from the earth. Its tangle of roots are stringy and thin, leaving a dark, wet patch of soil between its neighbors. Jade chucks it into the wheelbarrow beside her.

     “You can’t do anything but throw it out,” she says, “and hope that the rest won’t be infected.”

     Cicadas are screeching in the trees. You can almost hear the pulse of the sun bearing down on you, the shadows it throws in long, dark bars behind you and your sister. You look toward the sky and shield your eyes from its brightness.

 

-

 

     Every moment you can feel the Sun disappearing, its phosphorous trails wisping and whispering into the pull of the black hole, stringy and spaghettified under the force of so many G’s, droplets down a drain. You feel every atom of its loss, every green flame snuffed out. Like an involuntary twitch of the wrist, your legs kicking under the bed sheets as you fall inside of a dream. Goosebumps and cold chills, the thing that made you special slowly draining away. A slow descent into mediocrity.

     One day there will be nothing of it left, and when you wake there will be nothing to see beyond what your eyes fall upon. You will see nothing and you can go nowhere, trapped within the boundaries of your own body. This is not quite as scary as the knowledge that Becquerel, sweet boy, that lovely dog, is wasting away inside of you, in whatever cortex he occupies, whatever cells and neural pathways he shares with you. Becquerel is dying, and soon enough there will be nothing left of your dog other than what you can see in the mirror.

     What an absolute waste.

     When the Green Sun is still sloshing around inside of you, with all its leavings and its crumbs, you will use it to travel to the edge of the universe. You go to the viscous soap bubble glisten-shine of the pond, where you can see cosmic lotus flowers and shimmering, pearlescent nebulae. And because there is no oxygen here and this is not the Medium and you cannot breathe, you pull atoms of oxygen from the air and hold them inside of you, willing your body to keep its shape and color.

     The universe is pale. You have decided, for arbitrary reasons, that the universe is a boy. You came to that conclusion because he was laborious to create, endlessly difficult, and because he fell away from you and disappeared for so long. It seemed correct, as you held the eight ball with its little flashing body darting around inside the murky liquid. Red and lavender and green and blue and red again, your nebulous boy. You held him close to your chest and felt something like pride. As he was nesting in the volcano, sleeping within the lava, you could see him as you shot across the Yard. You wanted to dive into the magma and fish him from the heat – and do what? Apologize, maybe. In your darkest moments, maybe you wanted to break the eight ball and pop him in your fist, watch his juices splatter between clenched fingers, because John was gone and there was no point to anything and what did it matter if your piddly little tadpole grew up at all?

     Then watching him dart across Skaia, launching through cumulonimbi, bursting forth in color and sound, fully formed. Kids –  they grow up so fast.

     You want to stay out here forever and watch things unfold from the outside, just resting against the amphibious folds. To watch your child’s stomach rise and fall, the cosmic twitching of his webbed toes, the glossy film on his blinking eyes. You want to whisper into his ear, or the approximation of it, _Hello little one, I created you. I made you from slime and computers and cradled you in my hands when you were so so small, I held your paradox twin in my arms as a girl and I sent you into Skaia to hatch and be born. Do you feel anything for me, little one, as I feel for you? Do you recognize me? Do you know me?_

     You want to stay out here forever and protect your child, to zap away the threats that harm him, to usher out evil from the inside, draw it out of him to keep him healthy and clean. Space, the great Mother, dotes on her legacy, her only son. A mother will do whatever is best for her children.

     But you can feel the Green Sun tugging away from you, Becquerel whining that it’s time to go, that you can’t stay outside any longer and it is safer inside where he can keep his eye on you, and you will tear yourself away from the frog’s cool and starry skin. Or, rather, you allow yourself to sink back inside of him.

     You go home and sleep for sixteen hours and you will not dream of anything but your little legs sleepwalking down the hillside, your hands fishing in the lagoon, holding the frog with the neon eyes before it sputtered and died in your hands.

 

-

 

     There is a fire that burns hot inside of you in pulsing waves of chartreuse, radioactive, a nuclear warhead ready to detonate. The surging of it chitter-jitters in your jaw and in your fingers, electrical twitching that almost tickles. You want to laugh aloud, you want to cup your face in your hands and smile until your muscles ache. There is no guilt inside of you and there is no regret. There is only you, Jade Harley, the First Guardian girl, the werewolf bombshell, the Witch of Space. It’s your way or the highway, and it feels so, so, good to be you.

     In the memories that have been passed down to you, she, that is to say you, Jade Harley, stands out the most. All righteous rage and holy fury, a blazing star and a thirst for blood. You wanted to sink your teeth into flesh, you wanted to bite, scream, and rip apart. And in a different way than it was for you the second time around, you wanted to make them all pay.

     Jade Harley, give us all the answers. Jade Harley, give me validation. Jade Harley, listen to my problems. Jade Harley, move the plot along. Jade Harley, let me take the reigns from you, let me push you aside, let me forget about you and exclude you and shove you away. Jade Harley, you are not smart enough or clever enough to know what we know – what a joke. Jade Harley, play along and don’t fuck this up for us. Jade Harley, let me kiss you, let me tear away from you, let me become a ghost and put words in your mouth and assume what you think and how you feel because I know better than you, Jade Harley, you know nothing anymore without your little clouds and you no longer serve a purpose. You are not needed and we will take it from here. Jade Harley, stay asleep and shut up and don’t get in the way.

     You don’t feel as though she’s controlling you, not really. It feels like she’s cut the iron strings of your marionette, freed you from your cage. A feral dog on a chain, chomping and frothing and standing on its hind legs, straining to be set loose. The Baroness cuts the chain and bids you to do whatever you please – within reason, dear, and be back in time for supper.

     She called to you from the other side of the Medium, a porch light flashing in the backyard, an open window with a pie on the sill. _Come here, angelfish,_ she whispered to you, _come to Mother, my guppy._ And it was her voice that you recognized, something embedded in the core of you, a memory forgotten until she whistled for you. She plants the images in your head – your hair tied in a ribbon, a bedroom that overlooks a vast, green field. And of course you do as you are told, because that is what good children do, and you want her to love you, and you do not want her to hurt you. So you punch the boy and seize the girl and you bring her dutifully to her doorstep.

 _Look at you,_ she says with her painted nails twisting through your hair. She tilts your chin so she can look at you, her obedient stepdaughter, both you and Jane, your mother-sister. Betty admires your long hair, the sharp bite of your canines. _Just as pretty as you used to be, and so strong. Your brother has run away from us, darling, and I need you to be a good gill and bring him back for me._

 _And in the meantime, Mother?_ You bear your teeth and let the growl rumble through you, the static that ripples through your hair, making it stand on end and crackle. You curl your claws and flex your neck.

     Your stepmother throws her head back and laughs. _Bring me the buoy, guppy, and you can do whatever you wish. The others don’t matter. Unleash hell, if that’s what you want._

     The fire and the fury, freedom at last, free from the ship, free from your own chains. Planning does not matter. Their feelings do not matter. What matters is you, the star balled up inside of you, pride and pain and pandemonium. You target them because – why? Because why not? Because you are the gun and they think it’s up to them to pull the trigger. Because you are too dumb, too naive, too coy, too clever, too involved and too much of a liability. You, Jade Harley, the _liability_. The liability with the power to rend their cells apart. Then be a liability. Be too clever, too coy. Be powerful. Be more powerful than anything they’ve ever seen.

     When your foot collides with John’s face and you hear the thud of him hitting the ground, it’s the happiest you’ve felt in ages.      

     But after all that, after you’ve kicked cute little mayors into lava and yelled yourself hoarse and dealt with obstinate and uncooperative girls, you take a short break on LOMAX. Because as angry as you are, and as much pain as you want to inflict, expectations are being made of you, and it is still very hard after all this time to be taken seriously. Not much has changed. So when the scent of your brother has faded and you are sick of trying and you would like just a moment of peace from Mother’s hounding – no pun intended – you rest atop a tall, carnelian hedge.

     What is it about being a villain that’s so hard? You have many ideas, but they interfere with Mother’s plan. Dave can’t fight the Lord of Time if you beat him black and blue. John won’t be useful if you clobber him within an inch of his life. So many bothersome boys, so little time. There must be something you could do to up your game. Maybe you could make due on your promise to vanish Roxy’s guts from her torso – make her a noodly, concave puppet with all her entrails splattered around her. That might get the idea through. But you don’t know Roxy. You aren’t mad at her. There’d be no feeling behind it.

     When you’re contemplating the fineries of being an effective antagonist, you hear a voice below you.

     “Hey, there you are.”

     You straighten up and swing your legs over the side of the hedge. Down in the long, wispy blades of grass, you can see Davesprite looking up at you.

     “Hello, Davesprite.”  
     “Whoa.” He pushes his sunglasses up. “Why do you look like that.”  
     You flash him a white grin. “Look like what?”  
     His mouth scrunches in incredulity. “ _Pretty_ sure your ears weren’t always gray. Or your skin.”  
     “Oh, look who’s being attentive.” You tilt your head, your smile widening. “You’re very observant.”  
     “And why do you sound like – man, whatever. Look, do you know where everyone went? You kinda flew the coop, and Nanna’s not very good at herding consorts, so….”  
     “I would have loved to stay and form orderly lines, but more pressing matters came up.” You cross your legs. “I won’t be staying long. I have business to attend to.”  
     He gives you that miffed, confused look. “Like?”  
     “I have to pay a visit to a girl and see whether she’s going to continue having organs or not.”

     Davesprite huffs, watching you twirl a long coil of hair ‘round your finger. It’s funny. His aloofness, his apathy, how he didn’t seem to care for anything other than his own sadness – he bothered you so much, but you never hated him. You don’t even want to punch him.

     “So I’m guessing this is some sort of evil ‘bad guy’ persona going on right now. Like you’ve put on The Mask or something. Okay.” He clicks his tongue. “Don’t know how the hell that happened, but hey, shit happens.”  
     “That’s what people keep saying. That it’s a persona.” You bob your foot. “It doesn’t convince you either, huh?”  
     “Not really.”  
     “I wonder why that is.”

     A gentle breeze tickles the grass. Davesprite picks a loose feather from one of his wings and lets it fall to the ground. It took so long for the second one to grow back. You had to stitch up his hack job before he got the sprite equivalent of sepsis, the way you stitched up the side of your grandfather’s face when the taxidermy robot accidentally nicked it open. You’re very good at ladder stitches.

     “What have you been doing then, on your nefarious campaign. Other than ditching us and flipping out.”  
     “I punched your brother.”  
     “Whoa, what.”  
     “I punched your brother, oh, I turned teen Nanna evil, too,” you count the deeds on your fingers. “I threw your mom in jail and threatened to eat her intestines, I pushed Dave’s cute little carapacian friend off a roof, I kicked John in the face….”  
     “Haha, what? That’s dope.”  
     “Yes, I thought it was pretty ‘dope’ too.”  
     “So you talked to Dave, huh.”     

     He’s trying to make himself sound so nonchalant. It pisses you off, but not in the way you’ve _been_ getting pissed off today. A tired, resigned kind of pissed.

     “I did. He’s as neurotic and obtuse as ever. Wasting away on that meteor rotted his brain, I think.”  
     “Oh.” He rubs his arm. He sounds almost relieved, but disappointed at the same time. “Yeah, that’s Daves for ya. No matter which way you slice it, we’re all a bundle of baggage.”  
     “You must think you’re being cute, deflecting like that.” You examine your claws. “Take it from me, as someone who has recently been freed from the obligations of social niceties. It feels very good to be angry.”  
     “I don’t know. Anger kinda makes me uncomfortable.” He looks away from you. “If, uh. If you’re so angry, why aren’t you kicking me in the face too?”  
     Without knowing why, and being immediately irritated with yourself, your heart jumps. “You piss me off, Davesprite, but I don’t want to kick you in the face. John was thoughtless in the ways he wronged me, and his lack of consideration makes him very punchable. You thought you had righteous reasons, even if they were asinine.”  
     Davesprite scratches the back of his head. “Okay, so we’re doing this now, then, huh.”  
     “I have time in my schedule to hash things out with another arrogant boy before I clock back in.” You flex your ankle, making it pop.  
     “Then hey, I deserve a good wallop. Go ahead, plant your fist right here, it’s prime real estate,” he says, presenting the side of his cheek.  
     “You’re such a tool,” you laugh. “Self-deprecation is so passe. What do you want from us, exactly? Pity?”  
     “God, fuck no, anything but that.”  
     “Then what?”  
     “I don’t know, fuck!” Davesprite makes an exasperated noise and throws up his hands. “I tried to fit in, I really did! But it didn’t stop me from thinking what I already thought about myself. I should’ve just stayed on Skaia, I guess. Damn battlefield was calling out to me anyway, like the game was like, summoning me home so the Reckoning would wipe me out. You should’ve–”  
     “Should’ve what?” you snap. “Huh? Should’ve let the meteor _hit_ you?”  
     “I didn’t say that.”  
     “Then say what you mean!”  
     “I should’ve – I should’ve avoided you two from the start. Spared you the trouble, I mean. That way, you wouldn’t have to deal with hating me.”

     Anger lights you up from the inside. For a burning moment you are green and yellow, crackling Sun and phosphorous. You feel your jaw open, the exhale of a wolf widening its maw, the drool of anticipation, crushing the deer between claw and fang. Davesprite sees it, too. His feathers fluff in fear.

     “I have _never_ hated you,” you hiss. “I have done nothing but fret and worry over your sorry ass, I have wrung my hands for you like I have for so many others, and I get nothing, _nothing_ in return. What makes you so certain you know how I feel? What makes you feel so entitled that you feel you can read my mind and put words in my mouth? You know _nothing_ at all about my feelings. I tried so hard to understand you, Davesprite, and you _never_ did me the same courtesy.”

     He stares at you with his mouth gaping open stupidly, and immediately you feel bad, and because you feel bad you just get madder. You are fucking grimbark Jade Harley, you’re not supposed to feel _bad_!       

     “I’m… sorry, Jade. I didn’t know.”  
     “Of course you didn’t. You never asked.” Embarrassed by your sudden outburst, you tug the hem of your tunic. “You’ve always been so convinced that everyone hates you, you never give them the chance to prove that they don’t. If you don’t like yourself, fine, _whatever_ . But don’t try to tell yourself that _I_ don’t like you, because that has never _once_ been true.”

     A heavy, awkward silence hangs between you now.

     “You still like me?” asks Davesprite.  
     “I…!” You feel your face redden. “I mean, I don’t _hate_ you! I – _god_ , you Striders are so self-absorbed and self-loathing at the same time, it’s infuriating! I can’t believe I took the time to defend your stupid idiot self to that even bigger stupid idiot. I could be doing literally _anything_ else right now. I could be wrecking shit and killing people, and instead I’m sticking up for dumb boys who don’t deserve it. Congratulations, you’ve passed your stupidity on to me. Our collective IQ just took a devastating hit.”  
     He gives you a small, sad smile. “For a bad guy, you’re being really cool right now. Did you really do that?”  
     “Who wants to know!” you shout. “Jesus, this isn’t how I wanted this to go!”  
     “So you were planning on hunting me down after all, huh.”  
     “No!” You take a deep breath and calm yourself. “No, you… wanted to be left alone. And I know how that feels, so I. I respected that.”  
     “I’m sorry,” is all he says.  
     “Whatever.”  
     “I really am,” he presses. “Evil Jade is kinda scary, but, you’re reminding of how cool it was just to kick back and play around on FreshJamz and shoot the shit.” He rubs the back of his neck, dislodging a loose feather from his hair. “I’m sorry I left you hanging like that, Jade. I didn’t really want to, but I – well, yeah, I put words in your mouth. I made assumptions about how you felt because I didn’t want to have those hard conversations and find out what was actually going on in your head. You didn’t deserve that.”  
     “No shit,” you huff.    
     “Yeah.” Davesprite laughs. “Hey, how much time left before you get back to your busy schedule of evildoings and schemes?”  
     “None at all, really.” You stand and jump from the hedge, landing neatly in the grass. “Brothers to hunt and punches to throw.”  
     “Give him an extra clobbering from me, too, will ya?”  
     You toss your hair back. “I will see if I can fit it in.”

     You start to walk away, to give yourself space between the two of you before you vanish into some other point in the Medium. He didn’t like the metallic smell of your teleportation, how it reminded him of Jack Noir and his bloodied sword, the growl in his throat. Davesprite stops you before you can leave.

     “Jade! Um, let’s talk later. When you’re done being mind controlled or, whatever freakish thing is happening to you.” He mumbles to himself under his breath, “ _Real fuckin’ concerning, but hey, what the hell’s a bird guy supposed to do about it._ ”  
     You tilt your head and give him a coy smile. “I’d enjoy that. Try not to do anything stupid while I’m gone.”  
     “I’ve never done anything stupid in my life.”

     You laugh at him, and he responds with a shy smile. God, he’s such a putz. But you still don’t want to hurt him. Not even a little bit. The vacuous lack of rage almost unsettles you.

     “I think… I’ll head back to LOWAS. It seems like the right place to be.”  
     “Okay, then.” You grin at him. “Goodbye for now, Davesprite.”  
     “Bye, I guess.”

     You fly away with the smell of wind in your nose, wind without direction, wind scattered every which way. You try to clear your head with the renewed fervor of searching for your brother, because Betty wants you to, and the old lady didn’t allot time for yelling at your ex-boyfriend. And if you want dinner tonight you will have to do what Mother wishes.

     As the scent alludes you, you grow angrier. Anger with your little brother, who slips away and continues to avoid you. John, who only cared about your feelings when it gave him an excuse to yell at Davesprite. John who didn’t care about your interests, John who shut you down at every corner. John who wouldn’t wake up and who got you killed in the fire of Prospit’s satellite descent, John who wasted so much time. John, for whom you spent long and lonely years waiting. John, who disappointed you so much when you realized that being together didn’t mean getting along. John who evades you now, taunting you. Breath and Space pushing apart from one another, atoms repelling, gravity pulling planets apart. John, who was beside you for three years and not really there at all. He has the audacity to cower from you now. You’re going to tear him apart when you get a hold of him.

     Thinking back on it now, when the memory of her – you – is far away, maybe it’s best that you were stopped in your tracks the second time around, when the spider troll emerged from the shadows and put you to sleep like she had a thousand times before. A dedicated pest, with you as her hapless target. When you think on it now, far removed from that slice of your life, you think it must have truly been for the greater good.

     You were so much angrier the second time. The fun they had, without fear or worry or regret or guilt. You wanted them all to die.

-

 

     You are getting pretty good at playing solitaire.

     The sound of the cards smacking against the table are satisfying. They’re glossy and clean, a present from John when he last spent the night at your house. You stayed up playing card games –  Crazy Eights, Egyptian Ratscrew, Go Fish. He tries to show you a card trick but messes up, makes them all shoot off across the floor. You laugh so hard that your stomach hurts.

     It’s almost noon, and your tea will get cold if you don’t hurry up and finish it. You take a long sip of it and watch the yard through the greenhouse windows. Nothing to be seen, now, expect for what your eyes fall upon. The Green Sun has sputtered down the storm drain, and you are stuck inside your body. No, not stuck – alone. After many years, your body now belongs only to you.

 

     For almost a year now you have been living alone. You wake up to the sound of water hitting the shore, a salty smell through your open window. Iguanas sleep on the rocks outside when the midday sun washes them in warmth, your house on stilts protected from the high tide. Wildflowers bloom in thick bushels between the sand, shielding your fruits and vegetables from summer heat. If you’re lucky, you can spot a little lavender hummingbird darting amid the buds.

     People flit in and out of your house so often that you always leave the door unlocked. Dave and Karkat stopping by for lunch, Dave holding a tin foil-wrapped dish that he and his boyfriend prepared the night before. Rose and Kanaya with their knitting and their books, walking down to the beach to wade in the water. They drop off “problem wigglers” for a change of scenery and pick them up a week later when ocean breeze and a gentle voice eases the stress of the brooding caverns. Calliope visiting to share her drawings with you, painting blank canvases together in the sunroom where the natural light is brightest. Jane and Nanna and Nanna again with their baking, Jake with his robot parts, a new collaboration bouncing around in his head. And once a month, from some mysterious corner of the world, Davepeta waltzes into your home and makes themself comfortable. They sleep in your bed, they share your meals, and they flit away again.

     And then there’s John, bumbling by on the breeze, all nervous smiles, scratching the back of his head like he thinks you’re going to turn him away. And of course you let him in, because he’s your only brother, your best friend, and you have all the time in the world for him.

 

     A seagull swoops over the water, snatches something out of it, flaps in circles. Your teacup is empty now. You walk out of the greenhouse, down the sandy wooden steps that creak underfoot, and tread across the soft sand to the sea. A warm breeze blows through your hair and tickles your face, the short strands that barely skim past your jaw. One night you looked at yourself in the mirror and decided that your hair was too heavy, too long, too cumbersome. You split your hair into two halves, took a pair of scissors, and sheared it off.

     Sometimes, a little memory will surface, bubbling up into the forefront of your mind. Sand between your toes and the roar of water – you remember standing on LOLAR now, the chalk dust staining your shoes, how Davesprite was so sad to see the empty shell of the house without his sister. You helped him dust the bookshelves, repair the roof damage, sweep up broken glass.

     It’s like watching a simulation of your life through VR goggles, a little out of step, a little uncanny. It’s not really you playing the game – you’re just looking in at it, peering through the window. You can feel the chalk dust, you can hear the sound of Davesprite picking up a family photo in a picture frame, sheepishly examining their faces.

     Other memories leak in. Roguery isn’t an exact science. You catch glimpses of you traipsing through dream bubbles. You see yourself with milky eyes, cold hands. Random timelines and branching universes seep through the cracks. You see you and your brother walking a dog in the springtime, yourself in a red dress, the dread of a woman holding your chin in her bejeweled hand. It’s your memory, but it’s not. Davepeta was right. It takes time to digest it all.

     Find out what makes you happy and start working towards it. Are you happy? You certainly aren’t sad.

     You wake up with the smell of salt on your pillow covers and the world feels a little lighter, your thoughts a little slower. In the backyard, sheltered by trees and rocks, your garden is thriving. There’s a boardwalk that shares a short breadth of land with your home, and when carapacians clatter down to set up picnic blankets and umbrellas, they shout a _hello_ to the friendly Witch. There are robots to tinker with and a house to maintain. Grandpa’s globe, a fixture in your living room, needs to be dusted. Tomorrow, Kanaya will be entrusting you with a pair of purple-blooded wigglers who have a bit of a hissing problem. You’ll have to clean up the room they’ll be staying in, wash the sheets, refrigerate the nutritious, sloppy mush they’ll eat for every meal. Your calendar is full. There’s much to be done, and you’ve always been happiest when there’s an important task at hand.

     Tonight, John will be stopping by to pick up the jacket he forgot on your couch. You spin the blue rubber band ‘round and ‘round on your pinky finger. This way, you’ll remember to expect him.


End file.
